GM's first generation fuel cell system has been extensively tested by a fleet of 100 retrofitted Chevy Equinox fuel cell vehicles. (Source: Car and Driver)

GM's second generation fuel cells are 220 lb lighter, use half the precious metals, and take up half the space of the previous generation system. (Source: AutoBlog Green)

Despite a strong push for electric, GM isn't skimping on hydrogen, another popular "green" vehicle technology

Hydrogen is an attractive alternative
fuel for the auto industry in some respects. The technology to
produce it with electricity already exists, and it would provide an
ideal way to store energy from alternative energy sources such as
clean nuclear fission, wind, solar, and (eventually) nuclear fusion.

However, many obstacles remain to its
commercial deployment. One challenge is developing a
production, delivery, and fueling station network capable of
sustaining commercial numbers of hydrogen vehicles. Thanks
largely to Toyota
and Honda, the roots of such a network have been planted in America's
largest urban centers: Los Angeles, California and New York, New
York.

Now one of the American automakers is preparing
to step up its efforts to solve the other key challenge -- designing
vehicles capable of using hydrogen efficiently. GM has
announced plans to bring vehicles powered by the universe's most
abundant gas to the market in only six years. GM is targeting
the 2016 model year for
a commercial deployment of its fifth generation fuel cell
system. By the time the fifth generation lands, GM believes the
system's size, cost, reliability, and capabilities will be ready for
viable mass produced vehicles.

Currently, GM is wrapping up
testing its second generation fuel cells. These cells feature
impressive advances over GM's first generation cells. In total,
GM's second generation fuel cell system is 220 pounds lighter than
the previous generation, half the size, and uses half the precious
metals, while delivering comparable power.

States Charles
Freese, executive director of GM Fuel Cell Activities, "The
improvements the team has been able to achieve are remarkable.
Hardware mechanization has been dramatically simplified, which will
help reduce cost, simplify manufacturing and improve durability."

GM
says that it has spent $1.5B USD of its own money on fuel cell
vehicles, but it warns it won't be able to deploy the vehicle's
commercially without government and industry-wide support. Mr.
Freese adds, "GM has invested more than $1.5 billion in fuel
cell technology and we are committed to continuing to invest, but we
no longer can go it alone. As we approach a costly part of the
program, we will require government and industry partnerships to
install a hydrogen infrastructure and help create a customer pull for
the products."

To drum up interest in fuel cell vehicles,
GM has deployed 100 hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric Chevrolet
Equinox midsize crossovers powered by its first generation cells.
The vehicles have been driven over 1 million miles by ordinary
citizens and celebrities, since 2007. Two DailyTech
staffers drove
one of these vehicles at the Consumer Electronics Show in early
2008, and came away with favorable impressions.

GM and its
competitors Toyota and Honda are hoping that fuel distributors and
the U.S. government support a greater U.S. deployment over the next
several years. The German government just announced plans to
build 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations by 2015. In Japan, 13 oil
and gas companies have announced similar plans. That leaves the
U.S., which only has 73 existing
and 44 planned stations, far behind these foreign competitors
[Source].
GM has high hopes, though, that the U.S. deployment will pick up and
it will catch up before 2015.

GM is also aggressively pursuing
commercial electric vehicle deployment – next year it will deliver
the 2011
Chevy Volt EV.

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With high temperature nuclear reactors you can use the sulfur-iodine cycle for production of hydrogen which is much more efficient than using electricity from geothermal for the job. Electrolysis is only about 50% efficient. Geothermal does not give you high enough temperatures to drive the chemical process.

Although they are hoping to break even with the ITER fusion tokamak, the problem is one of cost. Although confidence is high, many fusion researchers don't believe that the tokamak approach will ever be able to produce energy in a cost effective mannner. It's just too expensive and too complex to run for the energy output. If fusion is going to be an energy source for us it's probably going to depend on the success of the Polywell, Focus fusion, or the Field-reversed configuration.

Geothermal isn't feasible in all locations. Most places where geothermal *is* feasible, it's already being used. Nuclear works wherever you put it and is not utilized even remotely as well as it could be yet.

I think the entire west coast is an appropriate location for Geothermal harvesting. It's on a fault line which means the mining depth is shallow (figuratively speaking) reducing cost and complexity, and even though it is lower temperature, it still produces a substantial amount of pressure to keep turbine energy production high. I agree it's not adequate to produce hydrogen, but the west coast constantly has an electrical shortage which Geothermal will help solve.

The only real downside is that of safety and required realestate, imho.

The most efficient geothermal merely uses steam released from the ground directly. A lot of the early wells have gone dry of steam/water. Sometimes, water can be re-injected, but even then, the original output isn't as high. Providing that much water is a problem in the dry areas where it's an issue, raising costs.

Another problem for long-term geothermal is corrosion. Geothermal waters are full of all kinds of nasty minerals and salts that are quite destructive on equipment, increasing costs yet again.

But hell, even if it's not a hydrogen answer, it should be checked out as much as possible. I'd say wind and solar have more widespread promise, but that's just my guesstimate.

Do you have any reasons for CLEARLY superior geothermal power? I personally believe nuclear is CLEARLY superior to ALL other possible energy sources. In the long run it is cheaper and as green as everything else.The failure of the new plants (gen 5):NoneThe radioactive waste generation of the new plants: Basically noneThe power generation of the new plants: OMG